Build a wellness program

A wellness program aims to help employees and their family members feel their best through positive voluntary behavior changes. These changes focus on reducing health and injury risks, improving health consumer skills, and enhancing well-being.

On this page

How can I build my wellness program?

To build and grow your wellness program, use our SmartHealth Worksite Wellness Roadmap. We created this online tool based on researched best practices to help you plan and target key areas for success.

Need help with the roadmap?

New to wellness?

Contact wawellness@hca.wa.gov to help you get started, engage your leaders, or explain the business case of why wellness is a win-win for organizations and their staff.

Why use the roadmap?

We want to recognize and award your hard work and success! Submitting the roadmap each year is your organization’s application for our annual Zo8 Award.

Your organization can earn the Zo8 Award without completing every task we outline in the roadmap because we recognize and respect that all of you face your own unique challenges and are at different levels of program maturity. Go to tracking success for more details about the Zo8 Award.

Along with the chance to earn the Zo8 award, here are three more reasons why your organization should use the roadmap:

Easy-to-use tool to build a wellness program plan.

Helps both new and mature wellness programs.

Based on best practices from wellness leaders.

When is the roadmap due?

The roadmap is due by February 28 each year. Report the great work you did the previous year to apply for our annual Zo8 Award.

Resources to complete the roadmap

To help you complete the roadmap, use the resources below within each step.

What is leadership support?

Leadership support can come in many different forms including a single sponsor or an executive leadership team. Leadership support can be a simple letter of support or something more complex like incorporating wellness into your new employee orientation.

Why get leadership support?

You need leadership support for sustained success. Once leadership buys-in, everything becomes easier. Involve leadership up front to find out what they need and expect. Their needs will help shape the goals for your worksite wellness program. For more details on why you should get leadership support, see Leadership Support (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

How to get leadership support

Use the resources below to help you complete the tasks to get leadership support. For more details on how to get leadership support, try out these resources:

Task 1.2: Ask what types of resources and budget leadership will provide

Task 1.3: Ask which leaders will help promote or support the program

What is a successful team?

A successful team enjoys working together and for one another to achieve shared goals. Form a diverse team if possible. Look for a mix of skills, experience, age, and more. A diverse team offers unique skills and expertise. For more details on what is a successful team, see Build A High-Performing Team in 30 Minutes (Forbes).

Why form a team?

A team makes everything easier. A team can reach more people, accomplish more tasks, and reach sustained success by sharing the load. When your team grows together, you are better prepared to handle changes. For more details on why you should form a team, see Creating Cohesive Wellness Teams (WELCOA).

How do I form a successful team?

Use the resources below to help you complete the tasks to form a successful team to grow your worksite wellness program. For more details, see Form Your Wellness Team.

Task 2.1: Form a diverse team with staff from different units, backgrounds, and work roles

What is collecting information?

You can collect information in a variety of ways, but we want you to focus on a few key pieces to help shape your program. Now that you found out your leadership needs, reach out to your staff and find out what they want.

Why collect information?

Knowing where you are at makes it easier to figure out where to go. Ask your audience what they want in a wellness program. Using this collaborative approach gives them a voice in shaping the program, making it more likely for them to join and inspire others. Collecting information will give you the details you need to create a sound wellness plan. For more details on why you should collect information, see Collecting Data to Drive Health Efforts (WELCOA).

How to collect information

Use the resources below to help you collect information to create a plan for your program. For more details on how to collect information, see Building a Sound Data Collection Plan (Six Sigma).

Task 3.1: Send a wellness interest survey to your staff

Task 3.2: Give staff multiple ways to share feedback

Make it easy for your staff to share input. Offer options that make sense for your organization (email, phone, physical drop box, etc.), but try to use the ones that make it easy for you to track and organize the feedback.

Task 3.4: Use the dashboard to review your SmartHealth data

What is a wellness plan?

Your wellness plan mirrors a good project management plan. Similar to all project plans, you can use a shorter, simpler template if you are just starting or a more robust plan if you have a mature program. Use terms that fit your organization such as mission, goals, or objectives.

Why use a wellness plan?

A good plan makes it easier for everyone to work together. Following the principle of starting slow to move fast, the extra work up front will help you work faster and smarter down the line. The plan will help keep your team on track, know what to do and when, and have a formal way to share your success at the end of the year. To help assess whether your workplace environment supports good health practices, see Checklist to Change (WellSteps).

How do I create a wellness plan?

Use the resources below to help you complete the tasks to create your plan. For ideas on how to get started, see Wellness plan tips.

Task 4.1: Analyze your wellness interest survey results

For ideas on how to analyze survey results, see Analyzing surveys (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Task 4.7: Get leadership to review, approve, and sign the wellness plan

What are wellness activities?

Wellness activities are the things you do and promote at the worksite to engage staff in healthy lifestyle activities. Focus on giving them activities they want to create excitement and maximize participation. Build activities based on the eight dimensions of wellness (emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual).

Why promote activities?

You need to engage your staff for them to participate. Without staff participation, your program cannot succeed. Think about staff interests, goals, and needs to maximize participation. You can raise wellness awareness, but these activities give staff the opportunity to practice them. By giving them the activities they want, you can build morale, increase visibility, and generate excitement. For tips on how to engage employees, see How to Maximize Employee Wellness Participation (WellSteps).

Task 5.4: Get leadership to promote or visibly support at least one activity

What are wellness policies?

Wellness policies help shape how your staff can engage in your wellness program. These policies define the experience, answering the what, when, and how for your organization. You can explore a wide range of policies to meet staff needs.

Why create wellness policies?

You will reduce the barriers for your staff to engage and participate in wellness by creating or updating policies. By making it easier for them to participate, you give them the access they need to explore. This maximizes participation, grows internal support, and adds visibility to your efforts. As your staff's needs change, your team can find ways to meet them by creating new policies. For more details on why you should create wellness policies, See Creating a Supportive Environment (WELCOA) for tips on how to create or update wellness policies.

How do I create wellness policies?

Use the resources below to help you complete the tasks to create or update wellness policies. See Walk This Way for a resource on state and local policies that support wellness in and around the workplace.

Task 6.1: Find and organize your current wellness policies

By organizing your current wellness policies, you will have a better sense of where you are to help you figure out where you need to go with your policy work.

Task 6.2: Review your policies. Use the information you collected from the previous steps to find opportunities to increase access to your wellness activities

Task 6.3: Create or update wellness policies to meet your needs

What is the evaluation?

The evaluation gives you the chance to share your success with others. Your evaluation should include the measurable goals from your wellness plan. By creating measurable goals, objectives, or whatever term your organization uses, you have a way to measure and share results. The evaluation should also ask staff for their input. This will help you plan for the next year, giving insight for your next interest survey.

Why evaluate your progress?

If you do not know what did or did not work, how will you know what to improve or what you can build on? You need to evaluate your progress so you can share your story. For more details on why you should evaluate your progress, see Ensure Use of Evaluation Findings and Share Lessons Learned (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). How you evaluate your progress impacts your ongoing leadership support, along with the budget you have or may want.

How do I evaluate progress?

Use the resources below to help you complete the tasks to evaluate progress. See Carefully Evaluating Outcomes (WELCOA) for ideas on how to evaluate your progress. You can also try to answer the three following questions to help you evaluate your progress:

What: What do you see? What does the data tell you?

So What: What sense can you make of the emerging data? What does it mean to you?

Now What: What are your options? What do you plan to do next?

Task 7.1: Send an evaluation survey to staff

Go to the links below to for ideas or templates you can use and customize for your evaluation survey. Make it easy for staff by giving them enough time and the right channels to share their feedback. You need their input to evaluate, plan, and grow your program.

What is sharing results?

Sharing results keeps everyone in the loop. You started your wellness journey for the year and this is a great way to help close the circle for everyone involved. You can share what did and did not work so you can gear up and plan for next year.

Why share results?

You need to share your results to tell your wellness story. This will keep both leadership and staff connected to your program, building a sense of ownership for everyone involved.